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That was an amazing few days. Even if the campaigns weren't that good (basically completely fiction). O.K. The campaigns were entertaining, but it could have been better. You get heroes in the campaigns that can basically be used as damage sponges (I used them to fend of whole armies). I have mixed feelings over the cards, but they did save me several times at the beginnings of games when I forgot to train enough military units.

Overall, it is a great game. I like the Asian Dynasties expansion the most, but then I like Asian cultures. It added quite a bit and I think they used 3D models instead of sprites (as they used in AOEII). I'd recommend it, but at $40 you might as well get a retail copy.

This is on sale at Steam, but the description is sadly lacking. What does it include? But more important: How was AOE III? Will someone who played AOE II to death enjoy this?

Not on the same level as Age of Kings but still a very nice and enjoyable RTS. Same concept (different era), quite enjoyable (though unfortunately not historical) campaigns across the expansions as well. Some interesting unique features as well.

The multiplayer is fun because you can collect and choose from a variety of "cards" to send over from "the old country" to your new world colony at regular intervals (basically this amounts to getting some free or costly-but-special units delivered to your town center a while after you decide to play that card). It makes for some interesting combinations depending on what civs you're playing against or teamed up with. I also enjoyed the matchmaking system for multiplayer games...with a ranking system and all that, it worked pretty well! I wonder if it's still played widely?

The single-player storyline-wise is a bit silly, if you liked the historical feeling of the older ones...this one is a lot more, hmm, "non-canon"? =P But it was fun to play through, as I recall. I never got into the custom-scenario scene for AOE3 like I did for AoK, so I can't say anything about that.

Overall, I found it to be a bit less of a Classic than AoK (and it suffers a little bit from that phenomenon whereby 2d graphics will always look awesome forever, while 3d graphics tend not to Age so well *badum-shhh*), but I was glad that I bought it and I played it quite a bit at the time. It's different enough from Age of Kings that you don't feel like you "might as well play the old version" or anything like that, but it still feels like an "Age" game.

Best thing about the game: the way that the cannons scatter units upon impact. I often attempted to make armies composed entirely of siege weapons because that was so satisfying. =P

I'm not sure what the "Complete" version includes (probably the one expansion that I don't remember, but remember owning?). But I think 20 dollars would be a fine price for even the original without expansions.

Support for my all-pepperjack-cheese food bank charity drive has been lukewarm at best.

I've discovered something of a minor masterpiece with Age of Empires 3 Complete. I remember I played the demo for the original AOE3 when it came out (back in '05) but my computer struggled with it and I couldn't really get into it. I picked the collection up when Microsoft was offering it for five cents, and recently installed it as I've been going through nostalgic phase of playing old strategy games. And it's quite excellent. By the time the final expansion came out in '07 (The Asian Dynasties), RTS as a genre had moved on into the less economy/more action model that Relic and Massive made popular. So the package sort of stands as this last manifestation of a very specific type of RTS.

Big Huge Games' (who actually made the final expansion for AOE3) binary stars Rise of Nations and Rise of Legends are in my mind the best RTS of that same type, but Age of Empires 3 has a baroque sensibility and a sumptuousness that they can't match. Look at this video of combat in New England -- the foliage! The smoke! The ships! The weirdly flocking cavalry! A gorgeous, fiddly, and very fun game. I'm having a blast going through the campaigns and playing skirmish matches.

As long as you slap down a steady flow of houses (cheap) you'll have a gargantuan work force which can be willfully thrown into the battle. I've won mp games using JUST VILLAGERS.
The funny thing is your opponents think they are crippling your economy when they kill your packs of highly upgraded villagers. You just need a few cards for free town centres and villager upgrades and they are an unstoppable war machine, be sure to pack some naval transport cards and you can pick islands clean before your opponents has even considered the trip, then just abandon the island except one or two villagers who can build houses if your base gets attacked.

As long as you slap down a steady flow of houses (cheap) you'll have a gargantuan work force which can be willfully thrown into the battle. I've won mp games using JUST VILLAGERS.
The funny thing is your opponents think they are crippling your economy when they kill your packs of highly upgraded villagers. You just need a few cards for free town centres and villager upgrades and they are an unstoppable war machine, be sure to pack some naval transport cards and you can pick islands clean before your opponents has even considered the trip, then just abandon the island except one or two villagers who can build houses if your base gets attacked.

That reminds me of my favourite strategy in Age of Mythology. As Norse, spamming villagers and then activate the Ragnarök power.

Ahh, some memories are coming back to me. My brother got a lot better at multiplayer AoE3 than I did, and he found some very...clever combinations of team cards. (Team Cards are a card that you can play that gives a bonus to everyone on your team, and each civilization has unique team cards). In particular, I remember Portugal had a team card which allowed construction of light cavalry one age earlier, which is not usually that great...unless you happen to be the one Warchiefs Expansion civ with the one particular kind of light cavalry that was ridiculously good one age early. =P I imagine they've fixed that, but it does illustrate how the cards and civ bonuses allow for some more extremely varied strategies, in comparison with AoK. (It seems they scaled back a bit from the totally-dissimilar civs in Age of Mythology, but learned a lot about creative bonuses and penalties from that game).

Support for my all-pepperjack-cheese food bank charity drive has been lukewarm at best.

I absolutely loved the AoE 2 Campaigns especially Barbarosas' Story.
When I started AoE 3 my expectations where very high and sadly absolutely disapointed, what a uncoherent pile of rubbish. At least the addons where somewhat enjoyable. Stll shallow though.
This game is clearly disigned for multiplayer.